


Krabat Fragments

by salamanderinspace



Category: Krabat (2008), Krabat | The Satanic Mill - Otfried Preußler
Genre: Cupcakes, Excerpts, Ficlet Collection, Ficlets, Fluff and Crack, Gen, M/M, Non Consensual Dream Sharing, Snippets, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-01-25 12:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12531920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamanderinspace/pseuds/salamanderinspace
Summary: Short, silly and light selections from various things I write to stay engaged while working on longfic.





	1. Working Together Well

One morning, at breakfast, Krabat noticed something strange. His porridge tasted unusual, like wood pulp mixed with dirt. 

"Juro!" he exclaimed, dropping his spoon. "What did you put in this?"

Everyone at the table turned to look at him. "Nothing different, Krabat," Juro answered, puzzled.

Confounded, Krabat watched the others finish their breakfasts. Taking a few spoonfuls, he found the food was still satisfying, only lacking any flavor. 

The day became stranger from there. He found himself struggling extra on the steps up to the bin floor. The sack of wheat on his shoulder felt like ten, and before he could tip the contents into the hopper, he fell into a dead faint.

Work stopped immediately. Krabat woke with Hanzo and Michal standing over him. "That's what you get for skipping breakfast!" Hanzo said, but they pulled him to his feet with great concern. Unfortunately the commotion caught the Master's attention. "What's holding things up?" He calmed some when he saw Krabat looking so ill. "Hanzo and Lyschko, carry him back to my study," he ordered.

When Krabat was seated in the black study, the Master gripped his chin and looked hard into his eyes. "Open your mouth," he said. Krabat did so. "No fever..." the Master said, "but you've been feeling off." Like usual, it seemed he was reading Krabat's mind.

"A spell could cure this quickly," the Master declared, "but first there is something we need done. Go with Lyschko to the doctor in Dresden and tell him your symptoms. Procure three vials of mercury."

The whole journey, Krabat wasn't feeling himself. His mood kept shifting from anger into an inexplicable euphoria. "If you tell me what's got you going," Lyschko teased, "no one has to know that you're faking."

Krabat shook his head. "Not faking," he muttered. He felt a swoon of irritation. "I feel as ugly inside as your face looks!"

They arrived in Dresden in the morning, just as the dawn mist rolled over the stones of the streets. All the surgeons had gone to war but the chemist was still at home and seeing patients. He accepted Krabat's case with interest. "Dysgeusia and syncope," he noted. "Did you fall in love with a French girl?"

"No," Krabat answered. He felt stuck in a mysteriously cheerful disposition. It distracted him from feeling baffled. "Can you cure me?"

"Treatment for French flu would be mercury," the doctor said, hesitant. "But I think I'll need to observe you before making a diagnosis."

"What? Why?" Lyschko asked. "If you think it's French flu, then it is. Or don't you know what you're doing?"

The doctor frowned. "Even doctors make mistakes," he said. "It's better to be safe."

"Safe, sure," Lyschko declared. "But we looked you up. You're the best doctor in Dresden! We feel plenty safe with your diagnosis. You can give us the mercury!"

Frowning still, the doctor went to fetch the medicine. "Is mercury really so precious?" Krabat asked.

"It must be if the Master can't get it."

"Maybe he can," Krabat suggested. "Maybe he just wanted to see how we'd do on the job, together." The chemist returned and their banter halted. Krabat fell abruptly silent when he saw a syringe, and a plaster cast. 

"Hey, what's that?!" Lyschko exclaimed. "Can't we take the drugs to go?"

"This is a more cautious method," the chemist explained.

Krabat wanted to shout "no thanks!" Unfortunately, at that moment, he fainted again. When he woke, he felt just like he had after being "put through the mill" on the night he finished his apprenticeship.

"I hope you're grateful," the Master was saying, "Lyschko changed into a bear and carried you all the way back from Dresden, unconscious."

Krabat groaned. "Did you _drag_ me?"

"Only some of the way," Lyschko answered. "And your fainting convinced the doctor to let me take the mercury without any fuss."

"A job well done," the Master said, holding up the three vials. As an afterthought, he added: "you work well together."


	2. Recipe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where does the flour go? XD

"Like roses," growled the Master.

"No, I don't want that," answered Goodman Death. The light of a single meager candle was not enough to fill the room. Dimly flickering, it did nothing to carve the shadows out from under Death's thick, dark hood.

"Then make some of them different," the Master said.

"What will you color them with?"

The Master's hands were white with flour. It was spread out all across the oaken table before him, like an invitation. "Sacrificial blood."

"Really?"

"No," he grunted. "Food dye." The Master went to the wall and laid his hand on the runes carved there. It marked the door to a panel-cupboard. Opening it, the Master pulled out several small vials of fluid. "We can make some blue ones if you don't want pink."

"What if I just want one large cake?" queried Death.

"Cupcakes create the illusion of choice," the Master replied.

Death fell silent. His disapproval was evident. "It's my flour," he reminded.

"And my labour." 

Suddenly, the empty sconces on the wall flamed to life. Torchless, they burned; the room was ablaze with light. Then there was a sound of glass shattering, and before the Master could act, the blue food dye was spilled across the mess of flour, sinking darkly into what would become the dough.

"No," Death told the Master, his breath a quiet hiss. "It's all mine."


	3. Before "Horse Trading"

It's too close to Spring for snow. In the late-day sun, a hefty black tomcat with a flat, moonish face and a smattering of spectacular whiskers sprawls out on the dirt. He is yowling, as cats do, though his demeanor is not entirely cat-like.

When a scrappy tabby emerges from the nearby brush, she is very curious about this un-cat-like cat. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, just melancholy," answers the tomcat.

"Why melancholy?"

"I need to get my friend in trouble today." He settles down into a meatloaf-shape, folding his paws pensively in front of him.

"Oh. Must you?"

"Yes. It's the only way he will see how cruel our Master is."

Something about the way he says "Master" tips the tabby off. She suddenly understands. This tomcat is not a tomcat at all. He is a transfigured human. A sorcerer. "I understand," the tabby purrs, keeping her composure in place. "Sometimes I have to scratch my human to see whether or not he'll swat at me. Are you afraid?"

"Not really," answers the sorcerer-cat. "The Master will punish my friend. Not me."

"Aren't you afraid your friend will punish you?"

"If he does," the sorcerer-cat answers, "then I'll know what kind of friend he is."

"That seems practical," the cat agrees. "Well, is there anything I can do to help?"

"It helps to talk to someone," he says. He stands up and stretches, yawning. Turning to leave, he first looks back at the tabby and offers a tip. "If you come to the kitchen at the Black Mill, tomorrow, the cook will give you cream."


	4. Dreams

Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly lonely or frustrated, Juro would send one of the others a dream.

Not a _purposeful_ dream--there were plenty of those, yes, and they needed to be handled carefully. 

But sometimes, when things were dire, Juro would send one of the other lads a _recreational_ dream. Something provocative.

He started doing this while he was learning to walk in the dreamworld and to shape the dreams in other minds. It was done for practice, for experimentation--he found it was easiest to make the dream about himself, of course, but if he really focused, he could send girls from the village, or demons or devils, or even the image of the Master. He learned a lot by watching how the others would recover from such events. 

Andrusch became very awkward but adjusted quickly. Staschko made boisterous chit-chat and avoided eye contact. Lyschko and Kito would both cast wary side-eye for days. Tonda grew very polite, all of the sudden--the more suggestive the dream, the more cordial would he be. To Juro's knowledge, none of the men _acted_ in response to the prurient visions. Though certainly some did look at him (and each other) differently, for awhile.

One night Juro himself woke from a rather troubling dream. He was in the kitchen stirring a soup when he looked down and saw--to his great shock--himself completely nude. There was a splash in the soup; Juro jumped back to avoid being scalded. He gasped, swallowing a cry, as out of the soup sprung a frog with one eye! It leered at him.

After that, he would limit himself to purposeful dreaming. Though certainly he did look at The Master differently, for awhile.


	5. Hair Snippet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyschko brought the sign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to cut / rewrite this part from longfic, but I liked it, so I will post here.

In a brown match-wood cabin in Schwarzkollm, a little maid with braids was singing a hymn as she did her mending. Only one window let in light, and a poor amount, since the view was blocked by a neighboring building. I smelled chickens, smoke, and livestock as I circled the place.

I landed in the window, ruffling dark feathers twice to get the girl's attention. _"Er Gud for mig, saa tr'de,"_ she was singing, in a bright and intimidating manner that filled the house. She wasn't attending me. She possibly didn't have many transfigured ravens as guests, and didn't know to watch for them. I perched in the window with the ring in my beak, watching her soft hands pull a needle and thread through a torn apron. Finally, impatient, I croaked at her, dropping the sign on the floor.

She looked up, startled, but quickly regained her senses and addressed me. "Krabat?"

Her voice pulled at me. It was like a chime, or a whistle: something which signals a change, and ending, a response. I jumped through the window and turned back into a human. "No, I'm Lyschko," I said. "I work with Krabat at the mill. I'm here tell you to come to the mill by the fen on the last day of the year and ask for Krabat. It will be very dangerous for you."

Her eyes went to the ring of hair. "Alright," she said, "thank you." She asked me no questions and said not another word. She didn't seem afraid. I stood in her house, in the quiet, unsure what to do then. What do you do after you hand someone yourself, your whole life, and they politely thank you and resume their business? A fly buzzed through the room, lonely and out of place in the dry winter. In summer, he would have had company.

The wind continued to howl outside. As if reading my thoughts, she asked me to stay by the fire a moment. I agreed, and found myself staring silently in the flames. There was a miserable pause. I heard her sigh.

"You must care for Krabat," she said, "to risk yourself like this." I realized I'd been waiting for this: some acknowledgement of what I'd done. Of the weight and catastrophe. Yet her presumption was inaccurate. Thinking back, perhaps it wasn't a presumption--she may have been trying to talk me into caring. "Sure," I said, half in a daze, and when I said it, it became truer. Until that moment, I hadn't been sure. Whatever part Krabat had in the loss of my home, whatever he contributed to my destruction, he did it without even trying. He hadn't cared enough about me to destroy me, except by accident. Did I care about him? I said "sure," so I must have.

She looked at me queerly, and asked, "Do all the miller's men care so much for each other?"

"Hanzo and Andrusch stick together. Staschko is popular and well-liked by all. Merten has everyone's sympathy since he tried to kill himself. Lobosch and Krabat--" I squinted at her, and tilted my head, "--are both insufferable, and yet everyone loves them. The only one no one concerns themselves about is Juro." I'm not sure why I told her all this. I suppose when you know things, and you go to great trouble to know them, there is a pleasure in recognition. What I was feeling was far from pleasure--still, she seemed impressed enough. 

She asked me to tell more about them and I did. I told anything I knew about the mill that might help her challenge the Master. Some of the things I told her--it was like I was hearing them for the first time. The truth can surprise you. Even when you are the one telling it. I heard my voice grow louder, angrier, and snappish. I railed, until I approached all the things I could not bring myself to say. Then, I fell silent. 

"Well," she said, when I was through, "thank you for your help. By the way, I'm Raina."

"Don't tell your name to anyone else!" I hissed at her. But I was relieved she'd told me. I'd laid myself bare to tell her so much; her secret covered me up again, somehow. "It's not safe."

Her expression softened, and her voice became gentle. "Are you alright, Lyschko?"

"Absolutely not," I answered, and made myself a raven again. I flew off without saying goodbye.


End file.
